Chrome gets reading mode in sidebar

Browser Google Chrome gets a reading mode in the sidebar of the browser. That has been announced by the company. Other browsers have had this for years, but it works full screen in almost all cases.

Google is announcing Reading Mode as part of a series of announcements for education. Reading mode strips images and videos, leaving users to read only the text. The original page remains on screen, but the text version appears in the sidebar. Users have options there to choose text size and font.

According to Google, the function should make it easier for people who process text and images in a different way to properly understand a web page. That should make it easier to concentrate on the page. It’s unclear how that works, because the original page on the left seems to stay in view. Other browsers have a reading mode that opens full screen.

Read Mode will be included in the M114 release of Chrome, which will be available for ChromeOS in a month. It is unknown if and when the feature will be included in the regular version of Chrome. Google has so far held back the feature, presumably because opening the page in reading mode in full screen also hides the ads. Google makes much of its money from online advertising.

Google Chrome reading mode